Field of the Invention
At least one embodiment of the invention relates to an implantable cardiac therapy device.
Description of the Related Art
Known implantable cardiac therapy devices include, for example, heart assist pumps which are designed to be connected to a ventricle of a heart and an associated artery, and are designed to pump blood from a particular ventricle into an associated artery, thereby supporting/relieving the particular ventricle. Ventricular assist devices (VAD) are already being implanted, in particular, to assist a severely limited ventricular pumping function. It is also known to use biventricular VAD pumps to provide adequate treatment for patients with right-ventricular and left-ventricular heart failure.
Other known implantable cardiac therapy devices include cardiac stimulators such as cardiac pacemakers or defibrillators/cardioverters comprising a stimulation unit for electrically stimulating a heart contraction. In particular, biventricular stimulators are already being implanted for cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT), which can emit electrical stimulation pulses to a right ventricle of a heart and to a left ventricle of a heart in order to stimulate a contraction of the particular ventricle. Within the scope of cardiac resynchronization therapy, the stimulation pulses are delivered in such a way that contractions of both ventricles are coordinated with each other in a manner similar to that of a healthy heart.
A combination of a VAD pump with a pacemaker is described in US 2006/0036127 A1 [0042].